Since the iPad went on sale a month ago, Apple has sold 1 million units, and users have downloaded an average of 12 apps per device, choosing from 5,000 available apps.

Apple did not sell 1 million iPods until a year-and-a-half after its release, and it took two-and-a-half months to sell a million iPhone units.

Happy News for Magazines

The numbers may portend good things for the magazine publishing industry. Zinio, a company that offers digital versions of print magazines, says that its Magazine Newsstand and Reader was the No. 1 free news app downloaded by iPad owners, writes MediaPost. (via MediaBuyerPlanner).

The iPad has generated miles of speculation about how it will affect the publishing industry, including, most recently, an article from Wired which poses the supposition that Newsweek - recently put on the block by the Washington Post Co. - may be the perfect opportunity for some enterprising buyer to reinvent it as a tablet-only publication. Existing iPad apps include those from Time, GQ, Wired, Men’s Health, Interview, Outside, Maxim, and Popular Science.

TV Keeps Close Eye on iPad, Too

The iPad is also being watched closely by media companies to see how television content will be consumed as they seek new revenue streams for their content. ABC is one network to move quickly and purposefully into the iPad arena, announcing yesterday that iPad users have played more than 1.5 million episodes of ABC television shows since the iPad went on sale, while more than 400,000 copies of the free ABC player have been downloaded.